Gina Carano On Pursuing Freedom In A World That Demands Conformity

A place that has reinvented itself over the past century seems like a fitting place to photograph Gina. In the heart of Coral Gables, Florida, we enter the Biltmore Hotel, an iconic oasis built in the Roaring Twenties. First a hotel, then a VA hospital during the Second World War, and later a university before being restored to its former glory as a hotel. It's seen golf tournaments and beauty pageants, mobsters and movie stars. Not only does it feel like you’re stepping back in time, but it feels like you’re in a far off country. The hotel staff has seen their fair share of celebrities, Dwayne Johnson being the latest. But as one friendly server admits as he brings a dirty martini into the dimly lit lower lounge Gina’s, their favorite.

Gina enters in a long black dress and red lips, a cross between a femme fatale of the silver screen and an American spy from a 1940s comic, the alluring kind soldiers painted on the wings of their fighter planes.

“I’ve never really fit into Hollywood,“ she says as she muses at the photos of old Hollywood legends grinning at her from their places on the walls. “I’ve had so many actors tell me, ‘Gina, you are too nice for this business!’ And I’m like, ‘I can be vicious, I promise!’” She laughs. “I know you can," I joke. "I’ve seen you in the ring.”

Gina rose to fame in the fighting world as a mixed martial artist with a 7-1 record. She was a pioneer in the brutal, mostly male-dominated sport, regarded by fans and the industry at large as “the face of women’s MMA," a title she rejected. Despite her MMA background, and what I doubt many people know, is that Gina in normal life is quite the introvert. She’s gentle and soft-spoken, although you wouldn’t think that from watching her on the screen.